Tina, Acton, CA
Hello! I’m Tina the Elderbull and I’m looking for a forever home of my own.
I had a home before, a place that I thought was my forever home. I used to be called “Athena” but that’s my past life because I was dumped by my “owners” at the age of 12 at a high kill shelter in the Los Angeles, CA area (East Valley).
This was in July 2011. I was in a bad shape (as you can see from my sad picture). Here’s a list of my “situation”:
I had a grapefruit-size tumor on my left rear leg that made it difficult for me to walk. I had a bad eye infection. To top it off, it was obvious to the shelter workers that my “owners” had stopped feeding me because I was so emaciated — every single bone in my body was visible, my coat was dull and missing patches of hair. My condition was so bad that the shelter even pursued pressing charges for animal neglect against my “owners.”
I had no hope. No one was going to take in a 12-year-old emaciated pit-type dog with a big tumor. I was already scheduled to die the very next day…
That’s when my angel came to save me. My rescuer is a dog trainer in Acton, CA. She saw my picture in a chain email she received titled “urgent dogs on death row at east valley” and there was something about me that stood out. She said I was beyond sad, my despondent look and utter sadness and disbelief of being abandonment was so moving…
She called the shelter to inquire about me. She couldn’t believe it when the shelter told her about how my previous owners had me for 12 years apparently with little to NO care. She was outraged that they dumped me like a ‘disposable item’ at a kill shelter. She decided to ‘bail me out’ and became my foster mom.
My name was changed to ‘Tina’ to help erase my dark past. My rescue/foster mom says ‘Tina’ sounds similar to my old name, making to easier for me to learn my new name.
My foster mom is awesome. She runs Alpha Pet Dog and she helps naughty dogs get better…with love, praise and reward-based training — she calls it classical and operant conditioning and behavior modification. She has a soft spot for pit bulls and especially elderbulls.
Fast forward to December 2011 and 20 pounds later, I’ve had a successful surgery on my leg, lots of good nutrition and daily tummy rubs. I’m learning how to play and be ‘a dog’ and I get to snuggle up in a warm fancy bed every night…
I had a bit of a scare on December 12, 2011. I had a surgery to remove an aggressive cancerous growth under my chin and something went wrong with my surgery. I almost died to due uncontrollable internal bleeding at the surgery site. I was too weak to go under anesthesia again to do exploratory surgery. I was declared ‘stable’ as of December 17 and my rescue/foster mom brought me home that night.
There is still quite a bit of swelling and my foster mom had it checked out (at a different vet!!) because it did not improve within the next couple of days. The new vet put me on different antibiotics and he also did a class IV deep tissue laser therapy and my foster mom had to do warm compresses 3 times a day. The good news is, the vet took the stitches out today, just less than 2 weeks after the bad surgery!
My foster mom started my Facebook page for more exposure of all the beautiful but sadly often overlooked Elderbulls and also because last week she thought she was going to loose me.
I’m still available for adoption in So-Cal. I need to be an only dog in an adult household (no ‘small’ children). If you are interested in adopting me once I’m fully recovered, please contact my foster mom Antje at alphapet@msn.com.
Thank you for reading my story!